4 Major Types of Cloud Computing Services

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): This is one of the most comprehensive and flexible type of cloud computing service available nowadays. This model provides a completely virtualized computing infrastructure that is provisioned and managed over the internet. Under this cloud service, all hardware resources are provided by an external provider and managed on behalf of the business. The external provider offering this cloud service is responsible for managing the physical end of the infrastructure (servers, data storage space, etc) in a data center, but allows customers to fully customize those virtualized resources to suit their specific needs. IaaS works as the best option for small companies and startups that don’t have the resources to purchase the hardware and software needed to create their own network internally. It also reduces the burden of the IT departments in managing computing infrastructure by themselves, and free them up to focus on other core business activities instead of troubleshooting. 

Platform as a Service (PaaS): This type of cloud computing service provides developers with a framework that can be used for building custom applications. It behaves like an advanced version of the IaaS model. In addition to providing the IT infrastructure, the PaaS model also provides the framework that is needed to build, test, deploy, manage, and update software products. Though it utilizes the same basic infrastructure as IaaS, but also includes the operating systems, middleware, development tools, and database management systems needed to create software applications. 

Software as a Service (SaaS): It is a special cloud computing service that incorporates the offerings of both IaaS and PaaS service models. It provides web-based software applications to customers on-demand. The service providers offering this cloud model hosts a fully-functional application through a browser-based interface and make it accessible to the users through the Internet. The most common example of SaaS solutions includes Microsoft 365 device management.  

Functions as a Service (FaaS): Also known as serverless computing, FaaS is brand-new and very young cloud computing service model. It is a serverless computing concept that allows users to execute code responsively without having to allocate processing resources ahead of time. The service provider offering this cloud model handles the infrastructure and allows the customer to focus strictly on deploying application code. Functions scale automatically, making them an excellent fit for dynamic workloads that fluctuate in terms of resource consumption.